Fishing for cockles has been renowned since ancient times. The sale in 1595 to Cardinal Girolamo di Ciriaco of a fishpond in Cesolina by Andrea Cesi yielded 2,000 scudi.
One of my most vivid early childhood memories was Grandma Violetta looking for cockles on the shore of Cincinnato beach. The loot was then placed in my bucket with fresh water and brought home early as possible.
I admit that I really like cockles in every way. I like when they are sautéed because I can dip bread in their delicious gravy, or on bruschetta like in the legendary 50s.
When they are the sauce for the pasta I provide, they are without their shells. The cockles are small and therefore you risk eating the pasta cold after having cleaned them all.
This is the recipe I make.
Spaghetti with cockles
- Preparation time: 30 minutes
- Ingredients for 4 servings
- Difficulty: Average difficulty recipe
- Ingredients
- 12 oz (350 grams) of spaghetti
- 4 lb. (2 kg) of cockles
- 2 cloves of garlic
- Salt to taste
- 1 fresh chili
- Extra virgin olive oil to taste
- Chopped parsley to taste
- Instructions
- Wash the cockles. Throw away the broken ones and purge all the remaining ones for at least three hours in fresh water, placing them in a colander placed on a plastic bowl with 1 tbs grams of coarse salt per US liter of water.
- In a pan with a clove of garlic and some water, cook the cockles on high heat (covered with a lid) for a few minutes until they are open. Remove them from the heat and place them in a bowl covered with film paper. Insert the bowl into a larger bowl filled with ice water to let the shellfish cool.
- When they are warm, remove the cockles from the shells. Leave only a few whole for decoration, then filter their water with a sieve.
- In a second pan, simmer the oil, garlic, and chili pepper, then add the filtered liquid from the mollusks.
- Boil water in a large saucepan, then toss in the pasta.
- Drain the spaghetti “al dente” and pour it into the pan. Add, if necessary, ladles of unsalted boiling water. At the end of cooking and when the pan is off the heat, add the shelled mussels and the chopped parsley.
Tips to ensure the success of the dish:
- Covering the mussels with cellophane will prevent them from losing moisture. There is nothing sadder than a shrunken cockle. This procedure is useful because it allows you to cook them well in advance.
- The final creaming of the pasta in the pan is, in this case, fundamental to ensure that the oil and water are emulsified thanks to the starch contained in the pasta.
- Salt if necessary and always and only at the end of the preparation, before serving.
